Among all these animals, mule deer are unsurpassed cartographic geniuses. In most mobile species, migration knowledge is hardwired. Songbirds track the stars; some moths sense magnetic fields. Deer, however, learn to migrate, cultivating mental maps as they tail their mothers from winter range to summer pasture. Whereas other ungulates stray widely, mule deer remain faithful to their inherited pathways. Deer migration isn’t merely a movement pattern but a form of culture, transmitted from doe to fawn like family lore. And when roads thwart their treks, the loss is as thorough as the erasure of
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